Theirry is a street artist in the same way that a twelve year old with an iPhone and an Instagram is a photographer. He can make street art all he wants but he truly has no idea what he is doing. All of his art is repetitive and, to me, is indistinguishable from the art of other artists. If I saw a lineup of his art with other pieces I would not be able to tell you which is his. He offers no unique qualities in his works and more importantly there is no visible meaning.
Despite these things there are many people out there willing to give up their money for his works. Although I would not call Theirry a street artist, Swales and Gee may be inclined to say he is. But because of the nature of street art I am hesitant to say it is a discourse. Swales says “A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.”(Swales 471) I am not familiar with street art so I may be wrong but the fact that most street art is illegal makes me believe that street artists are less open about what they do. They do not talk to many people about their work outside of those they trust. If these artists were to talk about their craft the police may pick up on it and get suspicious.
If we were to make the assumption that the discourse does exist then I believe that Theirry would be able to call himself a street artist. Gee says that being part of a discourse is “being able to engage in a particular sort of “dance” with words, deeds, values, feelings, other people, objects, tools, technologies, places and times so as to get recognized as a distinctive sort of who doing a distinctive sort of what.”(Gee 155)
I believe that Theirry meets these criteria with his experience and his art. Theirry is knowledgeable on the topic of street art due to his experiences with his film. He was able to shadow many famous artists and even help with some of their works. From these events he learned through acquisition how street artists work. The first sign of Theirry having his own knowledge of street art was when Banksy went to LA and Theirry was able to show him all of the best spots to put up work. Theirry knew the exact places the Banksy would want because he knew Banksy and street art. In a way Theirry was becoming a street artist long before he thought about completing his first work.
The second part of Gee’s definition of a member of a discourse is met by Theirry with his first gallery showing. He creates many works and markets himself to the public. In doing this he becomes an extremely distinctive who doing a distinctive what. I believe much of this is due in part to Theirry’s extraordinary ability to market products to the public. He knows how to get the word out and sell things. In this case it is himself that he is selling.
Theirry has this experience selling thing from his time selling used clothes for an enormous mark up. He was able to convince people that clothes he got for little to nothing where worth much more than that and was fashionable. I believe this skill of his contributed immensely to his art show’s success. Theirry was able to get a quote from Banksy endorsing his work and used this celebrity endorsement to build up the hype for his show. He was getting interviewed by large media outlets and he was virtually unknown. This media hype combined with Banksy’s backing helped Theirry to convince the public that his worthless artwork was something that they needed hanging on their walls. I think Theirry convinced himself that his work was worth something.
With the success of his show Theirry became, in the eyes of the public, a street artist. You could say his name and people would know exactly who you were talking about, MBW the street artist. But I maintain that Theirry is no more than a man with money to invest in himself and skills at marketing. He has no actually talent or vision. Is he a street artist? Yes. But you could also say that twelve year old with an Instagram is a photographer.
Ben Coon 